Alakea Street is a short downtown thoroughfare in the financial and historic core of Honolulu, running between major streets such as King and Merchant. The intersection of Merchant and Alakea Streets occupies land that, in the 19th century and earlier, was known as Kauanonoula (sometimes spelled Kauanonoʻula), a traditional loku—a gathering place where people came in the evenings for hula, chant, storytelling, and social amusement. The area was later urbanized with commercial buildings; it also lies near sites affected by the 1900 Chinatown fire set during the bubonic plague outbreak. Downtown Honolulu has a layered history of Native Hawaiian cultural practices, missionary-era development, and later commercial growth, and local ghost-tour operators and oral traditions treat certain intersections as spiritually active.
Reported Hauntings and Folklore
According to accounts preserved by the 19th-century historian John Papa ʻĪʻī and later writers such as William Drake Westervelt, the loku at Merchant and Alakea was one of two well-known evening gathering spots in old Honolulu. Oral tradition holds that the wailua (spirits or ghosts) of former participants continue to congregate there every evening from roughly 7 p.m. until midnight. Night-marcher processions are also said by some local storytellers to pass through the vicinity of Alakea, Bishop, and Bethel Streets. Contemporary ghost tours of downtown Honolulu sometimes reference the location, and occasional anecdotal reports from people working late in nearby buildings describe unease, unexplained sounds, or a sense of presence after business hours. These accounts remain within the realm of traditional Hawaiian folklore and modern tour narrative rather than verified paranormal investigation. The precise corner traditionally identified is the northern side of the Merchant–Alakea intersection.